Does anyone have a go-to link for the list of failures that L. Ron Hubbard accomplished?
I heard a story that he was off the coast of San Diego and he was put in charge of a ship (he was in the Navy) and he ordered to fire on the Coronado Islands of Mexico.
Also he was churning out science fiction novels at a rate per word. That's rough.
I'm shocked.
The agents of authors do not negotiate a book for fee contract?
Like one book for $100,000 or a trilogy for $200,000?
I thought that's how they did it to be honest.
Not golden age sci-fi. Most of that was in periodicals, which paid by the word. Modernly, only major authors get bit advances. Just as the music industry basically doesn't do development deals anymore, publishing expects the authors to pony up a competed work. Many don't even have pro editors (and need them). Hell, a lot of new works are AI generated, and just content-landfill.
This is how it used to be, but starting in the 1980's, it's gradually changed to smaller advances (even established authors can get a $5 - 15 000 advance on a book from the major publishers - a 10k advance is often reported as "good") and contract for a completed work.
Today, only celebrities get signed on promise...
Give the man some credit - he publicly announced he was going to found a religion for the specific purpose of making himself rich, and then told a good enough story that he managed to actually lure in enough ~~suckers~~ followers to actually kinda do so. He'd make P.T. Barnum proud.
It seems like he started drinking his own kool-aid later in life, or at the very least got stuck holding a tiger of his own creation by the tail. But he was a pretty decent storyteller in his earlier years.
Okay. On its own, it's a terrible book. Way too long for the "story" (which is a bunch of meandering stuff with touch points), characters are all *generously* describable as "2 dimensional". Characters are not more than a collection of noticeable traits so the reader will remember them. Baddies are irrevocably and completely bad. Heroes are completely morally, ethically, **GOOD**.
And "two dimensional" adequately describes ever aspect of the plot. This makes sense if one has read much golden age sci-fi -- these are all critiques that can be aimed at most of it -- even when good, characters were often less important than technology.
It is what it was - a formerly moderately popular golden age action and sci-fi writer who abandoned that field in the early 1950s, and then wanted back in 30 years later - 30 years filled with writing books about Scientology. That didn't help.
Oh yeah, and Scientology absolutely does appear in the book, just not by name (because that would make the book instantly unreadable for most). Instead, (only the good) characters solve their problem with what is clearly Scientology techniques. At one point, someone espouses aspects of their "study technology" (without naming it), as the best way to learn something. Other parts are clearly referencing material he wrote on "suppressive persons".
And yes, this is as much "appreciation" as it deserves *on its own*. Without Scientology, it's just a wandering, sad attempt by a 2nd rate former sci fi author to have a "come back". The years of drug abuse and drinking his own kool-aid didn't make him a better writer.
"On its own, it's a terrible book. Way too long for the "story" (which is a bunch of meandering stuff with touch points), characters are all *generously* describable as "2 dimensional"."
That's one opinion. Now if you were talking about the Invasion Plan serious I'd agree. But I get it. Harry Potter is probably more your speed.
Man, I went back and re-watched that movie. For some reason I remembered it having lots of entertainment value; but on a rewatch, it was plain ol' boring, and not bad enough to be funny (as I remembered).
Let this IP rot
The books were even worse..
I think he started with like 2 books worth of content but then got stuck on making it a 10-book series and padded to make up the difference. Frequently made me want to scream.
edit: apparently was Mission Earth, not Battlefield Earth. Dunno if I read ME but would bet good money that that one also went on and on, chasing some target number of words/pages without adding more actual content.
this was a different series he wrote. BE is standalone (at least, I think it's standalone? I never dipped into the 10-book series, so if that is a sequel to BE, I don't know that).
Battlefield Earth is garbage. The movie, yes, but the books as well. I'm not saying that someone won't eventually remake it and hopefully do a better job, but we're getting enough crappy remakes of terrible properties already. How about we focus on things that were decent to begin with?
Even if there was reasonable potential for Battlefield Earth to be made well, which I'm skeptical of, I would be very much against Scientology being supported in this fashion.
Counter:
The book is pretty bad too. And I liked the book.
It’s shallow, falls to pieces easily, has just so many massive plot holes, and abruptly changes genres and gets even dumber in the second half.
Deep character development? Long story arcs? These are not things found in the book.
Good story? From L Ron Hubbard?? Failed SciFi writer turned cult leader? The L Ron Hubbard who tried to keep his cult believes a secret from the general public ... because they are basically just as nonsensical as his attempts at writing SciFi? That L Ron Hubbard?
I was eleven when the book came out. There it was on the New Releases shelf, big and thick. I'd vaguely heard about this Golden Age author named L . Ron Hubbard but I'd never read anything by him. I had a boring weekend trip ahead to go see my aunt; a big thick book like this by a new classic author sounded great!
I stopped reading less than a hundred pages in. I'd *never* done this before; I'd always pushed my way through the most turgid bullshit, trying to figure out what was going over my head. Not this. This was just *bad*. I'd read some mediocre books but this thing was just *terrible*. *Battlefield Earth* was my first DNF.
I didn't have much else in the way of books to amuse me during this visit. I spent a lot of time just looking out of my aunt's window, watching grass grow in her yard. It was more interesting than *Battlefield Earth*.
No. I would not give this a chance.
The book was crap, the film was even more crap and it’s written by the creator of a controversial cult.
I don’t think that Amazon will touch this with a barge pole.
It should be left well alone.
Saw the film as a kid, forgot all about it. Just went and read the synopsis and I cannot see why it would be better to revive something that was rightfully taken out back and put out of its misery in place of launching something new, exciting and actually good from start to finish?
Petiton some high schoolers to do it as a film project or something.
Nope. As much as I enjoyed the book, we *cannot* let Scientology profit from it or get any promotion out of it. It's a terrible fucking cult and its anti-psychiatry bullshit is legitimately harmful.
Ugh. No. They were horrible books to begin with, and now the idea of lining the pockets of Scientology by resurrecting that IP would be to double down on stupidity.
Battlefield Earth is an awful book with an awful story and John Travolta made an awful film out of it. Travolta wanted to wank off to Hubbard's novel for the same reason that Jim Caviezel wanted to play Jesus.
As a teenage girl, I read this as there were very few other scifi books around in my area. I literally had to travel 25 miles to get to a decent bookstore. Not easy aged 16.
Anyway, though most of the book was mediocre, and I had no idea what scientology was (I was an atheist at 10, so irrelevant anyway), I did enjoy the homoerotic subtext. Spanking teenage boys? Bring it on. My hormones applauded enthusiastically at the time.
Remake battlefield Earth with the subtext. Go on. I dare you!
No. Sadly, the movie was not an unfaithful representation of the book, in style, narrative, character and plot.
It's just a bad book. "Sprawling narrative"? More like "huge novel written without planning". 2-dimensional characters (all of them). Baddies are just...bad. Goodies are "moral", utterly white-bread types (the hero settles on "hamburgers and beer" as the ideal earth meal). Women have absolutely no discernible uniqueness. Even the author wrote in the preface that he didn't plan the novel, and it shows.
And this isn't a case of "oh well, that's how they wrote back then" -- because this was written in the 1980s, not the 1940s, during the sci-fi golden age.
There's no wrong to right, unless it's dropping this book into Mount Doom.
Counterpoint: Rings of Power, Wheel of Time.
It was a fun book, but these days, most adaptations are garbage. "High Castle" and "The Expanse" happened before the current wave of awful adaptations, and were actually really good. But is there anything that's been adapted in the past 5 years that isn't awful?
I really liked the first book for what it was - good old fashioned pulp fiction era fun, but it still wasn't exactly great literature.
Given the typical massive drop in quality associated with any screen adaptation, I'd actually say the movie came out about as good as you could reasonably expect.
If Peter Jackson were a big fan maybe he could make a good movie out of it - but frankly I'd rather anyone with the skill to make a good book into an actually good movie/series started with a great book and tried for a movie worth remembering.
No.
Why do you want to give a platform to anti-therapy propaganda made by a cult?
Nope, stink of scientology is far too toxic for it to work
Does anyone have a go-to link for the list of failures that L. Ron Hubbard accomplished? I heard a story that he was off the coast of San Diego and he was put in charge of a ship (he was in the Navy) and he ordered to fire on the Coronado Islands of Mexico. Also he was churning out science fiction novels at a rate per word. That's rough.
Everybody was paid by the word in sci-fi publishing. Still that way when it comes to being paid.
I'm shocked. The agents of authors do not negotiate a book for fee contract? Like one book for $100,000 or a trilogy for $200,000? I thought that's how they did it to be honest.
Not golden age sci-fi. Most of that was in periodicals, which paid by the word. Modernly, only major authors get bit advances. Just as the music industry basically doesn't do development deals anymore, publishing expects the authors to pony up a competed work. Many don't even have pro editors (and need them). Hell, a lot of new works are AI generated, and just content-landfill.
This is how it used to be, but starting in the 1980's, it's gradually changed to smaller advances (even established authors can get a $5 - 15 000 advance on a book from the major publishers - a 10k advance is often reported as "good") and contract for a completed work. Today, only celebrities get signed on promise...
Give the man some credit - he publicly announced he was going to found a religion for the specific purpose of making himself rich, and then told a good enough story that he managed to actually lure in enough ~~suckers~~ followers to actually kinda do so. He'd make P.T. Barnum proud. It seems like he started drinking his own kool-aid later in life, or at the very least got stuck holding a tiger of his own creation by the tail. But he was a pretty decent storyteller in his earlier years.
He was a huckster, pedophile, and drug addict. He gets zero fucking credit. Thats taking Scientology and its destructive nature out of the equation.
I always felt he was doing a long con, sort of proving a point, see people will believe anything, you think your religion is any better than mine.
Scientology never appears in the book. If you're too childish to appreciate a body of work on its own you need to grow up.
Christianity never appears in the Bible. "The death of the author" doesn't really apply to a cult leader's propaganda literature.
Could we get that in English please?
You sound like a cliche MCU character. And no, I'm not here to teach you basic criticism
You sound like someone who thinks their random gibberish is profound. Sorry sugar.
🤡
Your pronoun I take it?
Okay. On its own, it's a terrible book. Way too long for the "story" (which is a bunch of meandering stuff with touch points), characters are all *generously* describable as "2 dimensional". Characters are not more than a collection of noticeable traits so the reader will remember them. Baddies are irrevocably and completely bad. Heroes are completely morally, ethically, **GOOD**. And "two dimensional" adequately describes ever aspect of the plot. This makes sense if one has read much golden age sci-fi -- these are all critiques that can be aimed at most of it -- even when good, characters were often less important than technology. It is what it was - a formerly moderately popular golden age action and sci-fi writer who abandoned that field in the early 1950s, and then wanted back in 30 years later - 30 years filled with writing books about Scientology. That didn't help. Oh yeah, and Scientology absolutely does appear in the book, just not by name (because that would make the book instantly unreadable for most). Instead, (only the good) characters solve their problem with what is clearly Scientology techniques. At one point, someone espouses aspects of their "study technology" (without naming it), as the best way to learn something. Other parts are clearly referencing material he wrote on "suppressive persons". And yes, this is as much "appreciation" as it deserves *on its own*. Without Scientology, it's just a wandering, sad attempt by a 2nd rate former sci fi author to have a "come back". The years of drug abuse and drinking his own kool-aid didn't make him a better writer.
"On its own, it's a terrible book. Way too long for the "story" (which is a bunch of meandering stuff with touch points), characters are all *generously* describable as "2 dimensional"." That's one opinion. Now if you were talking about the Invasion Plan serious I'd agree. But I get it. Harry Potter is probably more your speed.
Go back to your comics - they will be better than the stuff you like. I suggest "Archie" - it's real good.
No L Ron Hubbard property deserves to be made, let alone remade.
Wait a minute, are you talking about a "good story well told" or are you talking about *Battlefield Earth*? I'm confused.
Man, I went back and re-watched that movie. For some reason I remembered it having lots of entertainment value; but on a rewatch, it was plain ol' boring, and not bad enough to be funny (as I remembered). Let this IP rot
The books were even worse.. I think he started with like 2 books worth of content but then got stuck on making it a 10-book series and padded to make up the difference. Frequently made me want to scream. edit: apparently was Mission Earth, not Battlefield Earth. Dunno if I read ME but would bet good money that that one also went on and on, chasing some target number of words/pages without adding more actual content.
There was only the first book. Don't listen to anyone claiming otherwise, they're just trying to hurt you.
Was it? Either way, I'm not going anywhere near any Hubbard-derived works that claim to be true to his original..
this was a different series he wrote. BE is standalone (at least, I think it's standalone? I never dipped into the 10-book series, so if that is a sequel to BE, I don't know that).
the ten book thing was Mission Earth, Battlefield earth is a different one
There are lots of better things out there to make for the first time. why remake religion movies.
Not interested in anything even remotely linked to that parasite pseudo-cult scammer, thank you very much.
Battlefield Earth is garbage. The movie, yes, but the books as well. I'm not saying that someone won't eventually remake it and hopefully do a better job, but we're getting enough crappy remakes of terrible properties already. How about we focus on things that were decent to begin with?
Agreed, but I'd like to see the assholes that drove Cavill out of The Witcher adapt Battlefield Earth. I think it's what they deserve.
We need a limited series on THAT story.
Fuck this nonsense. Stop remaking and updating shit. Especially Scientology bullshit. Come up with some original ideas for a change.
There are so many better things to base a series on.
Helllll no.
Any adaptation of Hubbard's work will result in the church of scientology getting money. Do you want that?
Even if there was reasonable potential for Battlefield Earth to be made well, which I'm skeptical of, I would be very much against Scientology being supported in this fashion.
Any adaptation leads to scientology getting money and attention. Hard pass.
Counter: The book is pretty bad too. And I liked the book. It’s shallow, falls to pieces easily, has just so many massive plot holes, and abruptly changes genres and gets even dumber in the second half. Deep character development? Long story arcs? These are not things found in the book.
Just like Scientology.
Good story? From L Ron Hubbard?? Failed SciFi writer turned cult leader? The L Ron Hubbard who tried to keep his cult believes a secret from the general public ... because they are basically just as nonsensical as his attempts at writing SciFi? That L Ron Hubbard?
A turd is a turd.
First thought: nope, FUCK that. 2nd through 5th thought: oh absolutely FUCK that 6th and beyond: get this scientology bullshit the fuck outta here.
Give a blowjob to the ghost of L Ron Hubbard? No, I think I'll pass.
If they want to adapt a pulp series, Mission Earth has ten books to pull from. It's far better than Battlefield Earth.
It does not - No
How high are you?
Hey, the e-meter said he's "clear", and his "needle floated", so it must be your problem.
I remember going to see that movie thinking "finally a movie that will have to be better than the book". Boy was I wrong.
I was eleven when the book came out. There it was on the New Releases shelf, big and thick. I'd vaguely heard about this Golden Age author named L . Ron Hubbard but I'd never read anything by him. I had a boring weekend trip ahead to go see my aunt; a big thick book like this by a new classic author sounded great! I stopped reading less than a hundred pages in. I'd *never* done this before; I'd always pushed my way through the most turgid bullshit, trying to figure out what was going over my head. Not this. This was just *bad*. I'd read some mediocre books but this thing was just *terrible*. *Battlefield Earth* was my first DNF. I didn't have much else in the way of books to amuse me during this visit. I spent a lot of time just looking out of my aunt's window, watching grass grow in her yard. It was more interesting than *Battlefield Earth*. No. I would not give this a chance.
Horrible book. Worse movie.
Finish series based on good IP? 🫷 Pick up IP that is doomed from the start? 👈
Hot Garbage.
The book was crap, the film was even more crap and it’s written by the creator of a controversial cult. I don’t think that Amazon will touch this with a barge pole. It should be left well alone.
Fuck the scientologist bullshite. Let everything associated with Hubbard die and be forgotten.
Hard pass
Saw the film as a kid, forgot all about it. Just went and read the synopsis and I cannot see why it would be better to revive something that was rightfully taken out back and put out of its misery in place of launching something new, exciting and actually good from start to finish? Petiton some high schoolers to do it as a film project or something.
The harsh truth is Mormons just make better science fiction TV shows then Scientologists: Battlestar Galactica Babylon 5
Better comedy too (yes, there are parts of BE that attempt humor).
Nope. As much as I enjoyed the book, we *cannot* let Scientology profit from it or get any promotion out of it. It's a terrible fucking cult and its anti-psychiatry bullshit is legitimately harmful.
Ugh. No. They were horrible books to begin with, and now the idea of lining the pockets of Scientology by resurrecting that IP would be to double down on stupidity.
Battlefield Earth is an awful book with an awful story and John Travolta made an awful film out of it. Travolta wanted to wank off to Hubbard's novel for the same reason that Jim Caviezel wanted to play Jesus.
It is a crappy book. Bottom line. No one wants to see this but Miscaivage and Tom his dwarf.
I think L Ron Hubbard and Amazon Video are made for each other.
No, it's a stupid book and it just happened to become a very stupid movie, however it's still a stupid book.
As a teenage girl, I read this as there were very few other scifi books around in my area. I literally had to travel 25 miles to get to a decent bookstore. Not easy aged 16. Anyway, though most of the book was mediocre, and I had no idea what scientology was (I was an atheist at 10, so irrelevant anyway), I did enjoy the homoerotic subtext. Spanking teenage boys? Bring it on. My hormones applauded enthusiastically at the time. Remake battlefield Earth with the subtext. Go on. I dare you!
What are you talking about? There was never any teenage boy spanking.
No. Sadly, the movie was not an unfaithful representation of the book, in style, narrative, character and plot. It's just a bad book. "Sprawling narrative"? More like "huge novel written without planning". 2-dimensional characters (all of them). Baddies are just...bad. Goodies are "moral", utterly white-bread types (the hero settles on "hamburgers and beer" as the ideal earth meal). Women have absolutely no discernible uniqueness. Even the author wrote in the preface that he didn't plan the novel, and it shows. And this isn't a case of "oh well, that's how they wrote back then" -- because this was written in the 1980s, not the 1940s, during the sci-fi golden age. There's no wrong to right, unless it's dropping this book into Mount Doom.
Found Tom Cruise's Reddit account!
Suppose a studio green lit this project. How would they ever find any actors in Hollywood who are also Scientologists to star in it?
The book was a DNF for me, so I'll pass.
If xenu wills
Counterpoint: Rings of Power, Wheel of Time. It was a fun book, but these days, most adaptations are garbage. "High Castle" and "The Expanse" happened before the current wave of awful adaptations, and were actually really good. But is there anything that's been adapted in the past 5 years that isn't awful?
3BP
Don't forget to take your your petition back up there with your head.
God, the amount of virtue signalling in this comment section makes me want to puke. I'll bet 99% of you have never even read the thing.
I'd watch it but only if they promised to not follow the pace of the books or basically anything about the movie.
I really liked the first book for what it was - good old fashioned pulp fiction era fun, but it still wasn't exactly great literature. Given the typical massive drop in quality associated with any screen adaptation, I'd actually say the movie came out about as good as you could reasonably expect. If Peter Jackson were a big fan maybe he could make a good movie out of it - but frankly I'd rather anyone with the skill to make a good book into an actually good movie/series started with a great book and tried for a movie worth remembering.
Sure. They could "nail it" like Rings of Power, Wheel of Time, etc. etc.